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On Giving Thanks...

...each day, not just on Thanksgiving. Celebrate quietly, thoughtfully. It needn't take long and requires no lengthy preparation.

Give thanks that we live in a country with people like these:

SangerM, whose comment on Americans a couple of posts down was too good not to give wider exposure...

That we are so rich in every imaginable way, and that we can travel around the world in fantastic machines of our own making and deliver food and other aid to people on mountains and in valleys, and everywhere, and that we can do it again, and again, and again... That we don't care if those people can read or write or speak our language; nor what their religion is, or their color, or even if they like us all that much. We just do it because it is the right thing to do. . .

. . . Because it is the right thing to do.

...and another.

Slow Hand salute for a brave young man, unafraid to answer his nation's call, willing to give the last full measure of devotion in defense of our freedom and way of life. Please pray for him and his family in their time of grief.

1st Lt. Dennis W. Zilinski, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry, 3rd BCT, 101st Airborne Division. Killed in action 19 November, 2005, in one of two separate IED attacks on US combat operational patrols in the vicinity of Bayji, Iraq.

I am deeply saddened at this young man's death. It has brought back all the repressed memories of comrades lost in another war, another time.

How fortunate we are that we have men such as this. How very painful it is when we lose them. God Bless and keep you, Dennis. Farewell.

Jim Ewart
162 AHC
Vulture 29
Can Tho 69-70

Two-Niner and I have sounded our own Taps earlier, in private--but in keeping with Castle tradition, now is the time when we dance In Memoriam.

Friends await him on his journey...

6 Comments

Dennis was one of about 6 cadets who loved the shore. They would crash in my basement and drink my beer. It saved them a few bucks. And you will never have more polite company! Two more of the group are on their way over. I fervently pray they come home unscathed. God Bless all our troops and return them, sound, to their loved ones.
 
" ... and still I wonder why The worst of men must fight, And the best of men must die."
 
fulltilt - Woody also wrote Now tonight there are lights in our country so bright. In the farms and in the cities, they are telling of the fight. And now our mighty battleships will steam the bounding main And remember the name of that good Reuben James. The best of men fight, too. When the worst of men force us, it's necessary... But the meaning of your sentiment is understood and appreciated. Thank you.
 
Chief, I am so sorry. My apologies for not laying any background to the post. _Reuben James_ has been a part of me for so long, I didn't realize, until I read your email, that it could be understood as other than a lamentation for and an honoring of LT Zilinski and all the others. We have no choice but to fight this fight; in 50 years this will be called a “good war”. I have two teenagers, 16 and 14. As far as I’m concerned, LT Zilinski was trying to ensure that my boys won’t have to fight it on the Canadian border. The elder wants to drive a tank; the younger thinks he has a calling to be a sniper. We shall see. Mike Mariani SFC USA (Ret'd)
 
And for those of you reading this thread and going "Huh? Reuben James?" Read this, and all will be clear. The Reuben James sails on today, too. Never let it be said that at the Castle we aren't hip-deep in trivia!
 
Thanks Chief. I meant it, too. I look around every day and give thanks for what I see and have. . . Who couldn't. V/R
 
© 2008 John Donovan
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